Azure Maps Creator services have been retired and will no longer be available or supported after September 30th, 2025. What to do next, I have a requirement for it?

Question

I have a requirement in which I need to use Azure Map Indoor service to read and display the contents of a dwg file. But since it is deprecated, what is the fix for it ?

Answer 1

If you have Autodesk, some versions of it have an export option for IMDF (Indoor Map Data Format) which is an open-source JSON based file format for indoor maps. Azure Maps Creator actually uses this format behind the scenes. If this is an option, it isn't overly difficult to them load these on a map. There are a couple of open-source solutions out there. I have one for Azure Maps that needs a bit of clean up but will look to get that made open source in the next month or two.

Another option is to convert the DWG file into a format that is easier to ingest into maps. Here is one set of steps:

1. Conver the DWG file to DXF. DXF is an open format and more widely supported. There is a good chance if you have tools to edit DWG files it has an export to DXF option. Alternatively, there are a lot of free options you can find online.
2. Once in DXF format you can open it up in QGIS (very powerful desktop GIS tool that is free). You might be able to skip this step 1 as I'm not certain if DWG format has been added yet.
3. In QGIS you can edit, if needed, and then export it as another common map data format, such as GeoJSON. GeoJSON can easily be loaded into most online maps (also the map visual in Power BI supports it).

Here is a decent step by step guide to convert it to ShapeFile, simply change the last step to any of the many output formats available in QGIS: https://mapscaping.com/converting_dwg_files_to_shapefiles_in_qgis/